


Colour blind

by umiwomitai



Series: Soulless [1]
Category: YG Entertainment | YG Family, iKON (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Attempt at Humor, Bittersweet Ending, Jiwon is only mentionned, M/M, but what's the fun in that, i'm a monster, this was supposed to end well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 11:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13786623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/umiwomitai/pseuds/umiwomitai
Summary: In a word where soulmates are mainly accepted, a minority of 'soulless' people remains widely unwelcome.Hanbin does believe in soulmates, always has, always will. When he wakes up in a colourless world, marked as soulless, he thinks that it's all a joke he will laugh off, or worse, a nightmare he will wake up from in a few minutes.Months after, though, he is still there, surrounded by black and white and wondering if he'll ever find happiness again.





	Colour blind

**Author's Note:**

> This is another (failed) attempt at writing something worthy of this ship.
> 
> It was supposed to be a happy soulmate!au and shit happened so here we go with a sad soulmate!au. It's proofread but english isn't my first language so I hope it's ok. Now, enjoy I guess.
> 
> (Dialogues in italics are words said in English)

« Sometimes people never find their soulmate. No matter the reason, it still happens. These people have a name, Hanbin: _soulless_. Not that they don't have a soul, of course they do. Yet it will never be complete. It will never be whole. They will never be whole. »

 

* * *

 

 

Traces of sleep on his face but a smile nonetheless. Hair a mess but still handsome. Laughter loud and obnoxious but still so endearing.

When looking at him, Hanbin wondered a lot. How happiness felt like, how he got the strength to keep smiling, what Senmi liked so much about him, if all this happiness really came from her mere presence on his sides.

It wasn’t jealousy in the way everyone would think about it, but in a way, deep inside, he was feeling jealous. Being soulless had never been uncommon, or unheard of. It had happened, it was happening, and it would be happening again. No one really knew why, nor how, but facts were facts.

However, _himself_ being soulless had been unexpected, to say the least. In his dramatic days, he would qualify his fate as out of a tragedy. On his normal days, it still felt like a tragedy.

Soulless. How ironic, for the son of one of the most famous professor studying about this exact phenomenon. Never had he ever thought of being one of _them_ , yet again the facts were undeniably there.

25, successful music producer, his own apartment and just enough friends not to feel alone, marked as _soulless._

At first, he had thought of a dumb joke, a trick played on him by his friends. Then realisation had dawned upon him, quickly followed by fear, anger and a deep feeling of injustice. He knew perfectly well that nothing he had done or could do would ever change his _fate_ , but that hadn't stopped him from trying.

Everything had ended in alcohol and long hours of years streaking down his face before finally falling asleep. Or started, actually.

On the morning, when he’d woken up, he had decided that he could live with the idea of forever being half empty and never being able to see colours again. He couldn’t miss what he had never had after all. Despite himself, jealousy was the hardest to get rid off.

All his friends had a soulmate. Every single one of them, even if some still hadn’t found theirs. It definitely wasn’t the easiest thing to be surrounded by people that were bound to be happy and crazily in love.

His dad had told him about associations of _soulless_ people organising meetings and such to help each other getting through it. He had thought about going more times than he would dare to admit.

But he was pretty sure that wasn’t what he desperately needed. He was seeking love and understanding, not compassion and pity.

He was still firm with this decision and reasoning, yet here he was, at his desk, scrolling through hundreds of posts about being _soulless_.

Soulless.

He hated the word just as much as it made him feel... important. At least he wasn’t alone. At least he had a name, something to turn to when needed, something to hold onto when feeling lost.

He ended up reading one particular post about a girl, only 14-year-old but already marked, and suddenly he started feeling sad again; for her.

She sounded lonely, afraid, lost, and maybe a little angry, and maybe a little too much like him when he had found out, and maybe he wanted to bring her comfort. Scrolling down to the comment section, his eyes read through one of the reply with surprise and genuine interest.

There were only two answers, one being very short and concise, supporting the young fellow _soulless_. The other one, though, was far for complete and intriguing.

This guy was apparently _soulless_ too, had been for years now, and was, according to his words, far happier than everyone else he knew that had a soulmate.

Hanbin read through his answer for long minutes, his head full of thoughts. Was it actually possible to reach such a state of peacefulness despite their shared situation?

He was curious. He wanted to know _how_. He wanted to talk to this person, to be a witness of their actual happiness and satisfaction, he wanted to understand this man and maybe, just maybe, learn from him.

He clicked on his profile, not finding much except for a name and an e-mail address. An e-mail... who read those? He didn't.

But deep inside, while writing his questions, he was hoping this guy did, or would. He needed him to.

In a way, he was the only solution he had that didn’t involve talking to his father.

Not to be misunderstood here, Hanbin loved his father, and the rest of his family. There are just things that can’t be said to your family, that are better left unsaid. He strongly believed that his despair couldn’t bring any good to his loving parents.

There was no cure for a soulless person. Once marked, the world just wasn't feeling as welcoming anymore. He knew the metrics, the statistics, the facts. He had read every single study his father had published.

He, more than everyone else, knew the sadness and hopelessness of his situation. Turning to a complete stranger definitely felt like the most right-minded thing to do.

Looking up at his phone screen, eyes still and fixed on his e-mail notifications, he sincerely hoped he had been right.

 

* * *

 

 

The cold wind piercing through his clothes. The tip of his nose already ice cold and red. The itch of the collar of his wool sweater. The smell of dirt and cigarette.

He was standing in front of a very old stone house in the west part of Switzerland. He had already forgotten the name of the village down the road, but that didn’t matter.

Reading the forum posts that were all in Korean, he had never expected the guy he wanted so badly to meet to be living somewhere so far and remote. Still, he was there, after hours of riding the plane, subway and bus. He was cold like he had never been, hungry and jetlagged.

He reached for the doorbell, ringing it twice, and then stepped back on the lower stair step. He looked around him a little. He was high in the mountains, surrounded by nothing but snow and trees and a little more snow. Behind the house, he thought he had seen something, but he didn’t get enough time to look more into it as the door finally opened.

A middle-aged woman was standing there, a hammer in her hand, hair tightly tied in a high bun. She was looking at him with fierce eyes. He breathed in deeply, regretting it immediately as the icy air burned his lungs.

“ _Hm, sorry, I’m looking for someone?”_ he tried in English, not sure the woman could understand.

“ _Are you Hanbin?”_ she answered with a perfect accent, though his name sounded kind of odd in her mouth.

“ _Yeah…”_

“ _We were expecting you later, but come in.”_

She left, letting him come inside on his own. He closed the door behind him and stood in the entry, not really knowing what she was expecting him to do.

“ _Leave your shoes and coat in the closet and go in the living room_!” he heard her yell from another room.

He did as prompted and even took a pair of slippers out of his bag before going further into the house.

It was warm inside, smelling like fresh bread and food he couldn’t identify. He peered inside the first room, in which was the woman, standing in front of a shelf she was apparently fixing.

“ _Hm_ …”

“ _Oh, the living room is the first room on your right. Can’t miss it.”_

“ _Thank you.”_

He left without another word. He knocked at the living room’s door and went inside. There was a group of people sitting on and in front of the couch, apparently too absorbed into whatever movie they were watching to notice him. On his left though was a man, spread out on a big old chair, glasses on the tip of his nose and a book on his lap. It seemed like he was sleeping, only that when Hanbin got closer, he suddenly raised his head up and smiled at him.

“Hanbin?”

“ _Oh my god, you_ scare _me! And yes, I am Hanbin_.” The man smiled even more hearing his English accent.

“I’m Jaewon. I’m the one you talked to on the forum. Feel free to talk in Korean.”

“Ah great. I haven’t really spoken English to anyone lately.”

“Don’t worry, no one here is a native. Come with me.”

Just like that, Jaewon put down his book, got up, put on his slippers (blue fluffy slippers with a smiley face on it) and left the room. Hanbin followed him in the hallway, and then in the stairs. He led him in a smaller room at the end of another hallway.

It was badly lit and smelled like dust and firewood, but it was warm enough and full of books and records and old stuff he had only ever heard of.

“It’s my _office._ ”

He had pronounced the word in English, a big smile on his face. Hanbin was starting to think that this man could make anyone feel more at ease with this smile. He showed him a chair on the corner and himself sat in front of his desk, near the fireplace that was the only source of light in the room.

He took the chair and placed it near him to sit close enough. The silence fell upon them, making him more than uneasy. This man seemed so much more than he was.

He was nice, smiling, settled, apparently at ease with his situation, inviting, and most of all probably one of the most handsome men he had ever met.

Appearance was for him far from a priority, since he had always been sure he would meet his soulmate and fall in love immediately without ever caring about appearance. Looks, or gender, had never been something he thought he’d have a chance to choose, so why bother at all?

Now, everything was changed.

Now, he was a man, like anyone else, a little freer than before, a little most lost. However, the only reason why he was feeling lost was because he was now in a world too big for him. There were so many possibilities now, so many opportunities. He felt like exploding just thinking about it.

Seeing such a person in front of him may have made realise all that he had missed. Maybe. No one really needed to know that.

“You don’t have anything to ask?”

“Well… I’m coming from far away, I know, but now that I’m here…  every question I had sounds dumb.”

Jaewon smiled at him once again and reached for a sheet of paper on his desk and handed it to him.

“It’s… my dad’s work?”

“Your dad? Professor Kim is your dad?”

“Yeah…”

“Oh. I can understand why you’re feeling like that, then. You probably had never thought about being soulless, right?”

“Yeah.”

He put the paper back on the desk. He had read every single page of his dad’s researches, everything that had been released and even small bits of drafts that had never ended up being worth enough to be revealed. He knew everything that needed to be know about the phenomenon, and yet, here he was, travelling to a faraway country to meet one guy who just happened to know how to live with it.

That was what he would call _desperate_.

“When did you know?”

“I found out three months ago.”

“Pretty early then.”

“And you?”

He smiled a little at him, in a way that felt sort of sad as much as it felt reassuring.

“I was 9 when the mark appeared. I didn’t even know what it was back then. I freaked out when I woke up one morning with this big mark on my arm and went to my parents to cry my heart out.”

“It’s…”

“I know what you’re gonna say. _Poor kid._ ”

“No. I was actually about to say that you’re a rare person. The statistics are very low for children under 14-year-old.”

This time he laughed whole-heartedly and looked at him with shiny eyes and a weird expression.

“You really know everything about it, uh? What are your symptoms?”

“I… I have a mark on the inside of my left ankle and I can’t see colours. At all. Everything is just black and white now.”

“Wow, I’m sorry dude. And I thought my symptoms were weird.”

He gave him a puzzled look and as an answer, Jaewon took off his sweater. He was wearing a sleeveless shirt (that he could see white) underneath. It wasn’t actually cold in the room, but Hanbin wouldn’t have taken off his sweater nonetheless.

“I could take off my pants too but that would be weird. I don’t feel cold or hot anymore. It’s been like that for so long I’ve actually forgotten how it feels when you’re cold.”

“So… Is it just that you can’t feel temperature, or does your body really not get cold?”

“It just doesn’t. I’ll show later if you want, but my temperature is always average. Or at least that’s what I’m told.”

“That is weird, indeed. Especially since you seem like a warm person.”

Jaewon looked at him for some time before bursting into laughter, and without realising, he started laughing along with him.

 

* * *

 

 

“So, everyone here is soulless?”

“Yes. There are a lot of places like this in Europe, a lot less in Korea. This is why I’m here. I’m learning how it works from various places around the continent just so I’ll be able to open some more in our country.”

“Wow. I didn’t think you’d be a kind person like that.”

“That is very mean of you.”

Hanbin chuckled.

He had been there for three days now, and all he had done was talk to Jaewon, eat, and play in the snow. It felt like vacations, a well-deserved rest, a brief stop in the midst of his busy life. It was more than welcome.

Even if at first it had all seemed ridiculous to him, places where everyone could understand your pain and sadness were, in a way, comforting. He could understand Jaewon’s wish to give a shelter to soulless people in their own country too.

Still, he wasn’t getting anywhere.

He was still feeling lost and empty. Despite Jaewon’s words, love remained forbidden to him.

“You know, on my trip, I’ve met more than one couple of soulless persons. It’s not impossible to fall in love.”

“I don’t know…”

Jaewon got up from the ground and came to sit down next to him on the couch.

“Hanbin, what has been taken away from you is the person who was fated to love you forever, not your ability to love. It doesn’t mean you’re bound to stay alone until you die.”

“Does it….”

He kept laying here, comforted by the music coming from the speakers on his left, eyes closed.

“I just feel… betrayed. And alone. I... I think that, in a way, I was expecting Jiwon to be my mate, you know? And then he found Senmi, and soon after I found… I found nothing. I was left alone and empty and angry against whatever thing that has enough power to decide who’s fated to be happy and who’s not.”

“That’s where you’re missing the point, Hanbin. You’re not fated to be unhappy and alone. A whole lot more possibilities are now free to come to you. You’ll have the chance to choose, and if that isn’t freedom, I don’t know what is.”

Once again, he let silence swallow him up, lost in his thoughts once again. In a way, he really wanted to think like him, because he was so much happier, going wherever he wanted, leaving whenever he wanted, no roots to hold him back to someone, someone he may not have wanted anyway.

Though, fear was still eating him from the inside. He had never really chosen anything. The only thing he had ever pursued was music, but yet again, everything about music had been so obvious. He _couldn’t_ have done anything else.

Love, however, was a totally different topic.

“I don’t really know how to. I’ve never chosen this kind of things, you know. It must sound ridiculous to you, but I’m 25 and I’ve never loved anyone but my family.”

“And Jiwon?”

“Yeah…”

“I know that. I’ve seen it. A few weeks ago, I was still in Ukraine and there was this man in the shelter, he was around fifty maybe. He had lived half of his life with the same woman, so sure that they were soulmates, when one day, they went to the market, and she met a man, a few years younger than her. A stranger, that had come for a few days of rest. They were mates. The man turned out to be soulless. You could see in his eyes how heartbroken he was.”

“What did he do, then?”

“He took a plane to South America a few days after I arrived. He said he might as well be useful and decided to do some volunteering there. When he left… he seemed at peace.”

“Peace… that’s not what I want.”

“You’re greedy.”

Hanbin snorted and opened his eyes again. Jaewon was playing some dumb game on his phone, but he couldn’t see clearly. He was wearing a light shirt that day, with long pants, probably blue. (Jaewon had said he liked this colour a lot. Hanbin had answered it must suit him very well.) His hair was a mess, like often. He didn’t seem to care much about his hair, claiming he looked good no matter what.

Full of confidence, happy, ambitious, and pretty like no man had ever been. That was how Hanbin would have described him to anyone who asked.

He wasn’t jealous, he just admired him, with the admiration children have for someone who manages to do easily what they struggle so much to do themselves.

“I know I shouldn’t want what I can’t have, but I can’t help it,” he said slowly, his eyes stuck on Jaewon’s face, who had looked up from his screen.

“Who said you couldn’t?” he simply answered, with an enigmatic smile, and his eyebrows raised in this cheeky way Hanbin had started to like more and more.

 

* * *

 

 

“ _So you’re leaving us Tuesday?”_

_“Yes. I still have to visit a shelter in Germany, and then I’ll head back home.”_

_“Well. It was a pleasure having you here. Never hesitate to visit us again.”_

_“I’ll remember.”_

Hanbin could feel his throat getting tighter and his heart hurting inside his chest. His brain was telling him he shouldn’t have eavesdropped in the first place, but he chose to ignore it. He knew he shouldn’t have, now it was simply too late.

So, he was leaving. Tuesday. He hadn’t told him anything, and even though he knew perfectly Jaewon didn’t _have_ to, he couldn’t help wanting him to.

He slowly went back upstairs, in Jaewon’s office, where he should have been all along. There, he sat on the floor near the fireplace, and took the book he was still reading. He opened it, reading the first two lines, but not managing to focus on the words.

He tilted his head up when he heard the door open and smiled a little at Jaewon’s face. He could pretend as long as needed. Even until it was too late.

“What are you reading?”

“I don’t even know anymore. I think I have a headache.”

“Are you cold?” Jaewon asked, kneeling in front of him to put his hand on his forehead.

“I know you can’t feel it, hyeong.”

“You must really be sick, you just called me hyeong.”

Hanbin smiled, and he smiled back, and for a moment, a very short moment, he thought he could make himself believe Jaewon would be staying. (for him)

“Go downstairs and ask Helma to give you some medicine.”

“I’m fine, I must be tired. Want to take a nap with me?”

“You really can’t get enough of me, uh?”

“Caught…”

Jaewon laughed and held out a hand for him to grab. As he took it, tight against his own hand, it felt cold. Maybe he was really having a fever. He got up and simply stood up there, in front of this other man who was smiling, like always.

His hair was dark brown, but it just seemed black to him. It felt sort of odd, to think that he knew every shade of Jaewon’s skin in a way no one had ever seen it, while everyone else could see him in a light he never could. It felt as if Jaewon held a part of mystery that would always remain out of reach.

It wasn’t exactly sad. In a way, he still had a part of Jaewon that no one could have, and this mere thought was enough to warm up his heart. He didn’t want to wonder why, he knew already. He was slowly letting his feelings free, step by step, getting drunk on the bliss of being truly himself.

“Didn’t you say you wanted to sleep?”

“I think I’d rather kiss you.”

“Then why don’t you?”

Just as simply, he reached for his other hand, holding it just as tightly, in a desperate attempt to make his body remember the feeling of his skin against his.

“Because you’re gonna leave.”

“You heard.”

“Yes. But I’m not only talking about Tuesday. We’re not yearning for the same things, Jaewon. I want love and the comfort of a settled life. You want freedom. We can’t match, and we won’t, because there isn’t someone supposed to be a match to people like us.”

“You don’t know a thing about it.”

“I do. I know more than you do. I’ve read so much, and despite everything you saw, it doesn’t change the fact that nothing for us is supposed to last. That’s how it is. We’re fated to be alone.”

Jaewon slowly let go of his hands, just as slowly as he had taken them, and he stepped back. His expression looked hurt, and he probably was.

“I thought I had convinced you…”

“About others, maybe. Not about myself.”

“This is ridiculous… I… I thought… I hoped you might want to come with me and help people like us believe in everything life has to give to us and you just… You just give up before even trying.”

“Come on, Jaewon, I have a life back there! I have to get money to pay my rent and my bills, I have friends and family, I have my job. All I have is there, I can’t let it all go for… I…”

“What? You can’t let it go for me?”

Hanbin let out the air he had been holding back. His eyes went up Jaewon’s face, looking at it with a pained expression. He knew what he was about to say would put an end to the fragile happiness they had shared, but he couldn’t find it in him to keep going this way.

“I can’t let go of everything I’ve ever worked for if I’m not sure you’ll stay by my side until the end.”

“Fuck… You’re really this kind of guy.”

Jaewon turned around, his hands trailing in his hair. He started walking in circles in the small space he had between the door and Hanbin, muttering under his breath.

“You have such a high opinion of all this soulmate bullshit. Those people… They’re not more special than us. They’re not happier. They don’t have any fucking privilege or whatever you think they have!”

“Of course, they do! Why would we be there if they hadn’t?! You’re the one being ridiculous! How can you still hope for happiness when the only thing that is left for you to love is a bunch of broken-hearted people or people who will _never_ care for you? This is rubbish.”

They stopped yelling at each other after long minutes, breath heavy, Jaewon’s cheeks probably red and Hanbin’s body probably too hot. They stood there for even longer minutes, not speaking anymore, hoping one of them would take back his words and step forward to cuddle and kiss the other.

None of that happened.

They stayed there until Jaewon left the room, without a word.

The day after, when Hanbin woke up, he had already left. On Friday, he went back down to the city, took a plane back to Seoul, then a taxi back home. When he arrived, he finally allowed himself to shed a few tears in the privacy of his room.

A few years later, while going through the news on his phone, he found an article about a shelter for soulless people opening up in the southern part of the country.

He smiled bitterly, though he never found enough bravery to drive down there to say “hello”.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll probably write something else with this au because I kinda like the idea. Thanks for reading through it all!  
> I'm on Tumblr (umi-wo-mitai) if you want to yell at me because of this shitty ending. 
> 
> And see you soon with (hopefully not) another fic about this ship!


End file.
